


Waiting to Engage

by velocitygrass



Series: Compatible Engagement [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-17
Updated: 2009-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velocitygrass/pseuds/velocitygrass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>The year Rodney was born is often cited as the birth of the cycling choice movement.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting to Engage

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Cycle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/54674) by [lavvyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/pseuds/lavvyan). 



> This is based solely on lavvyan's Cycle and none of the other stories/meta posted in the John Farr verse. The meeting between John and Rodney is completely lavvyan's. I simply retold it from Rodney's perspective.
> 
> Content notes/warnings: This universe includes uncontrollable physical sexual reactions based on random genetic compatibility. There are consensual and non-consensual occurrences of these so-called "engagements", including a brief but possibly triggery mention of a fatal engagement (OMC/OMC).

The year Rodney was born is often cited as the birth of the cycling choice movement. There had been protests before. But it took the end of the Summer of Love, when a new generation claimed the right to free love for _everyone_ not just cyclers, to turn a new page.

The Time Magazine cover of April of that year shouted "Is it Rape?" in large red letters. Talk shows discussed the right of compatibles (and cyclers) to say no and whether a cycler could ever be prosecutable for something that had been proven to be an unchangeable bio-chemical reaction. Churches went up in arms and admonished everyone not to question God's will. Cyclers feared for their right to engage, asking if it was going to end up with them being locked up during their cycle like a rabid animal.

And while emotions were high and the topic was constantly present in the media, at that point in time it hardly affected everyday life.

Nobody had asked Evelyn Henderson if it was rape when she was engaged by Andrew McKay on the third day of his cycle, resulting in the conception of Rodney. Instead she got married to Andrew like many other compatibles before her. She gave up university and soon had another child, Jeannie, also conceived during a cycle.

The cycling choice movement developed over the years. By the time Rodney was a teenager it had become a women's rights issue as well as a gay rights issue.

"Do you honestly think we'd have to _discuss_ the right not to engage if most cyclers were women?" Jeannie asked accusingly at their kitchen table one day.

Their father's lips thinned and he looked at his wife, but Evelyn didn't say anything at all. They were divorced a year later and Evelyn took her kids and moved to the United States.

That was when Rodney involuntarily became part of the cycling choice movement. He got dragged to peaceful protests carrying signs that said, "Don't ENGAGE in RAPE" or "No glove, no love" or "Cyclers and compatibles united for choice". He read the materials discussing why physical response didn't equal consent. And intellectually he began to understand why it was important for so many people, especially women, that engaging, no matter how pleasurable the act itself might be, had to be a choice.

It wasn't easy for him to be an example for the lack of choice his mother had had. He tried to see it from her side, to see how being engaged had left her out of control of her life. But it was hard not to take it personal when it was so obviously personal for his mother.

When Jeannie had a boyfriend who was a cycler their mother didn't let him into the house on the days of his cycle, even though he and Jeannie were not compatible. Evelyn had become nearly hysterical when she'd found out about that, screaming at Jeannie that she never should have let Kenny even try to touch her. Jeannie didn't have a boyfriend who was a cycler after that.

Rodney didn't feel the deep commitment that his mother and sister had for the cause, but he _did_ become a supporter in his own right, because being able to choose who you were and what you did was something that he felt strongly about. He never quite knew why because nobody controlled his life but himself. So he began being part of the movement in his own way, which wasn't always his mother's way. One time he carried a sign to a protest, showing a gay couple holding hands, a forbidden sign superimposed, above the infamous shot of Steve Young choking Charles Walker to death while he engaged him during his cycle. Underneath in large letters was the word "WHY?". The acquittal of Steve Young was one of the most controversial verdicts in the history of the United States and the most cited case to strike down the exclusion paragraph for cyclers in all laws related to sexual assault, but Evelyn didn't feel it was beneficial to mix the fight for cycling choice with gay rights. It wasn't _their_ fight. Rodney hadn't disagreed, but he'd kept the sign.

Rodney was in college when the exclusion paragraph for cyclers was replaced with a compromise that made prosecution of engagement during the cycle possible, while still allowing it as a defense. There weren't and to this day aren't many cases of cycling rape that come to trial. But the change in the law changed perception and wearing gloves on the days of your cycle stopped being seen as a sign of oppression by non-cyclers and became a choice as well.

Another thing that seemed impossible before the law had been changed was the invention of the panic button. From the beginning the majority of the population had been against general criminalization of engagements during the cycle. There were radical groups that called for that, but for the most part people didn't want to take away the right of cyclers to engage with willing compatibles in any way they wanted. However the final recognition of _unwilling_ compatibles sparked the discussion of what to do to help them _and_ the small but increasingly vocal number of cyclers who did not want to engage by accident.

Rodney always dismisses his role as inventor of the panic button. It's technically an unimpressive device. At the hit of the button it shocks the person touching it and anyone who touches them at the moment. It effectively stops any occurring engagement and serves as a signal that engagement is not wanted. It causes no permanent damage but is painful enough to discourage gratuitous use. Rodney built a prototype while writing his first dissertation. It was sparked by discussions on how to help those that did not _want_ to engage and his own need to stop thinking for a moment and relax. It went on large scale production only a year later and while Rodney never clamors for recognition for it (he _really_ didn't want it to be called the McKay button), he gladly takes the money from licensed manufacturers.

While he considers the technical merit of the device non-existent, he isn't dismissive of its use. Panic buttons are activated in only a comparatively small minority of engagements, but whenever he hears of someone who used it to avoid an unwanted engagement a small part of him is proud.

Rodney grew up in a household that exemplified the downside of cycling. He actively supported compatibles' rights since early in his life and he continues to be an ally against those who dismiss the movement as something that doesn't matter. He created the most highly recognizable symbol of the united fight for choice.

And yet, since he was a teenager, Rodney never wanted anything more in his life than to be engaged.

Rodney remembers clearly as if it happened yesterday the day he first saw his father literally _drag_ his mother to the bedroom. He's never seen his father with so much passion and in that moment he knows that he wants to experience something like this.

He masturbates thinking about girls (and occasionally boys) touching him and pushing him to the ground in their need to feel him. After what happened with Kenny he doesn't dare bring home a girl who's a cycler, although in college and later, it soon becomes apparent that it's easier said than done anyway.

Rodney isn't exactly great at relationships in the first place. He wants his girlfriend to be smart and hot, not easily offended and with a sense of humor. Finding someone like that who genuinely likes him is hard enough. Finding someone like that who's also a cycler _and_ genetically compatible is damn near impossible.

The only time it happens to him, where he's within reach of what he wants, is with Kelly Phillips, who generally wears gloves on her cycle, but whom Rodney could convince to give it a try. There's one second where he's allowed to feel the spark and see her eyes get dark with lust, before she pushes the panic button she's hidden in her other hand. The irony of it is pretty sickening.

He's tried before that and after.

When he was younger and between relationships he twice went to a cycling club. He'd been nearly sick with anticipation and fear that someone would recognize him and tell his mother or sister. But he had to try. There'd been only few women, fewer yet who allowed him to touch them and he'd been compatible to none of them. It had been the same with the few men that he'd approached at the club.

Rodney likes women. When he imagines himself in a relationship it is always with a woman. But in his quest to be engaged he also meets men. He touches them and has occasional one-night-stands, satisfying encounters even, but nothing more and never the moment he is waiting for, never the raw lust that a simple meeting of skin on skin can induce if the stars are aligned correctly.

He doesn't know if his sexual encounters with men are based on some genuine level of attraction or if it is all the hope to engage. Truthfully, he doesn't care.

As time goes on, Rodney becomes less obsessed with finding a cycler to engage him. Years of disappointment have left him disillusioned with his chances and he begins to think that even if it did happen it cannot possibly meet the expectations that he's built up over the years. He's also at an age where real life becomes more important than the dreams you had when you were young. He concentrates on his career and spends more time looking for a promising relationship as opposed to that one encounter that he might never experience.

He still fantasizes about it. A woman dragging him to the ground in sheer lust, satisfying herself with his body. A man pushing him into a wall, gripping his cock and thrusting against him. He fantasizes, but he stops looking for it.

And this is when it happens.

Jeannie has asked him to buy a few things for a meeting, so he goes to the mall, taking a side entrance to avoid the masses, when the person coming in behind him brushes his finger.

He's hauled against the wall and his eyes widen and he squawks in surprise that turns into a realization when the guy—it _is_ a guy judging from the smell and the strength and the hair—latches onto Rodney's neck and _sucks_.

Rodney only incoherently thinks _Finally_ and tries to shove at the man enough to see more than the blur of motion and the hair at least once, but then the man pushes closer and Rodney doesn't care about anything but the hot body pressing against him and the hard cock digging into his hip.

He starts to move too, touching and pulling, because he needs more, wants more, wants everything this guy, this cycler, can give him. The guy thrusts into him, moaning, and then does it again and it knocks the breath clear out of Rodney. He's never been so hard in his life.

When the guy moves his hand to Rodney's dick and _squeezes_ , Rodney can only whimper helplessly. He swears he can feel the guy smile against his neck and he wants to see that smile, wants to see his face, but then the guy starts rubbing against him and Rodney can only moan in unison with him.

It's wonderful, it's perfect. It's all Rodney ever wanted, all rational thought replaced with sheer need and lust. Their connection pulses through Rodney and he _revels_ in it, the complete lack of control, the complete surrender to raw passion and instinct. _Nothing_ else matters and Rodney's on such a high that he's not even sure his feet are still on the ground when the guy suddenly says, "The button," and Rodney can't believe it, can't _fucking_ believe it.

"Are you kidding?" he pants, silently cursing every cent he's taken for inventing it, every meeting that his mother and sister invited him to. Fuck that! He presses his thumb between the guy's ass cheeks _hard_. "This is the hottest thing that's ever happened to me." And nobody is going to take it away from him without a fight, certainly not with his own invention.

The guy starts thrusting against him again. Rodney swallows his relief and groans when the guy licks a stripe along his neck. He's tasting Rodney, and Rodney wants that too, wants to map the guy's skin, his whole body with his tongue, but he's _not_ letting go, keeping the guy between his hip and his hands, just like his cock is trapped in the guy's hand.

They're thrusting against each other, _one_ body, _one_ mind, except there's no conscious thought, only the bone deep feeling that he's waited for this moment all his life. The guy takes him higher and higher until Rodney can't hold himself together anymore and jerks, coming in his pants against the guy's hand and even as he comes, the guy opens his mouth against his neck and _bites_.

Rodney opens his mouth, but no sound escapes and he's suspended in time for a moment, the rush of his orgasm still carrying him when he feels the guy come in his pants against Rodney's hip. The guy is trembling violently against Rodney until his legs start to give away and Rodney pulls him up and steadies him, suddenly anxious for the guy to lift his head so that he can finally see his face.

Slowly, the guy seems to come down and as he lifts his head, revealing more of his face, Rodney only thinks he's the most beautiful person he's ever seen. He doesn't know if it's the compatibility speaking, that he's waited too long to finally engage to still think clearly, but he doesn't care.

When he feels the man stiffen in his hands, Rodney clears his throat. He can't just let him walk away. He _can't_. "So, uh. Since we seem to be genetically compatible and all," he says, awkwardly trying not to let his desperation show. "How about I buy you a coffee?"

The guy lets out a shaky laugh. Rodney's not sure if that's a good sign. When the guy begins, "I..." Rodney can hear the hesitation and lets go, giving the guy some space because that's obviously what he needs. But it's not working. The guy is looking at him and Rodney can practically feel that he's slipping away, their connection fading, even though Rodney can feel their wetness on his pants and the guy's teeth marks on his neck.

The guy's gaze focuses on the marks he left on Rodney, _his_ marks. Rodney can see the spark of possessiveness in his eyes. Hope rises in Rodney and when the guy says, "Yeah, how about?" his heart skips a beat, before a smile forms on his lips.


End file.
